Slaying the Tiger

by Shane Ryan

  They headed to a three-hole playoff, where Dufner stuck his approach on the 16th to six feet, then watched Bradley respond with an even better shot to four feet. Only Bradley made his birdie putt—Dufner’s putter, bad in normal circumstances, can be hazardous under pressure—and a three-putt bogey for Dufner on 17 stretched the lead to two. The kid from Vermont was now just a hole away from becoming a major champion, and his hand shook violently with adrenaline as he tried to sip from his water bottle.

  He composed himself well enough to make par, and somehow emerged victorious by a single stroke—a winner in the first major he’d ever played. At age twenty-five, he seemed to have it all—a major championship, lots of money, and, at last, the respect of his peers. He even got a congratulatory text message from Tom Brady, which made his year.

  The good life continued in 2012, when Bradley won the WGC-Bridgestone by chasing down Jim Furyk and Steve Stricker with a Sunday 64, and formed a dynamic team with Phil Mickelson at the Medinah Ryder Cup, going 3-0 in pairs play. Even the sour ending on Sunday, when the Europeans stormed back for a dramatic win, couldn’t dim Bradley’s bright star.

  Still, this is Keegan Bradley we’re talking about. He wouldn’t be himself if he couldn’t fuel his own fire with slights both real and imagined. At the 2012 Northern Trust Open, which he lost in a playoff to Bill Haas, his compulsive spitting gained so much attention that Bradley was forced to quit cold turkey. He almost quit Twitter, too, in response to the number of insults that filled up his feed. In December of that year, after the USGA and the R&A proposed a rule that would ban anchored putters—Bradley’s weapon of choice—he heard a spectator on the 18th hole of the World Challenge in California call him a cheater.

  “That’s unfortunate,” he said in his post-round presser. “It’s very disrespectful. But it’s fine with me. I’ve got to try and look at it as motivation to help me try to win this tournament.”

  Heckling is common in golf. In 2013, in Philadelphia, I watched a lone idiot on the 16th hole scream at Justin Rose—“It’s wet! Don’t chunk it!”—as Rose tried to win a tense U.S. Open. When David Toms won the 2001 PGA Championship, playing with Phil Mickelson in the final round, a girl followed him around the entire day, screeching, “Phil will get you! Phil will get you!” between holes. It got so bad that he asked his caddie to take her out with an umbrella the next time she showed up—and he was barely joking. Jim Furyk’s favorite heckle came at the 2010 Ryder in Wales, as he peered through a thick fog on the first tee. “Just follow your nose, Jim!” yelled one of the Brits, mocking Furyk’s larger-than-average beak. The fans in the stadium seats erupted in laughter, and Furyk actually applauded the heckler.

  It’s a rite of passage everybody endures, but nobody catalogs insults quite like Bradley. After the anchored putter ban was announced, a fan on Twitter advised him to send in his application to Burger King for 2016. That was the tip of the iceberg, and the abuse became constant. It bothered Bradley, as it does many players, due to the anonymous nature—you can’t fight a faceless bully, and even if you block one, seven more will pop up in its place, like a digital hydra.

  He also felt as though the USGA had put an asterisk next to his name, tainting his accomplishments. The organization went so far as to issue a statement denouncing the hecklers, but the fact is that by the nature of their judgment, they had essentially ruled that an anchored stroke gives players an unfair advantage and is against the spirit of the sport. Even if it remained legal until 2016, and had been legal when Bradley became the first anchored putter to win a major, the implication was impossible to miss—if he’d had to putt like everyone else, who knows what might have happened?

  The proposed rule was eventually passed after a feedback period, and the PGA Tour followed suit shortly after. The long sunset of the anchored-putting era had begun. Once more, Bradley could inflate with righteous resentment.

  * * *

  He was asked after the round if the debate could actually help him because he was running out of chips to put on his shoulder.

  “Absolutely,” he said. “You hear guys like Michael Jordan talk about how he liked to play on the road. The guy called me a cheater on the last hole—that gets me motivated. I’m never running out of stuff to motivate me because I always feel like I need to get better. I never go into a tournament thinking I’m playing so good that I’m going to win. Every single tournament I’ve won, I had a borderline meltdown on Wednesday. That’s what keeps me going. It’s just how I am.”

  —DOUG FERGUSON, AP, Dec. 11, 2012

  It’s no coincidence that Bradley befriended Michael Jordan at the 2012 Ryder Cup; Jordan is well known as someone who remembers every negative encounter he’s endured since childhood. And when Bradley needs motivation, he can summon them all: the fans who called him a cheater, the USGA who tarnished his greatest accomplishment, the pros who didn’t respect him, the NCAA who snubbed him on the All-American list, the other colleges who didn’t recruit him, the rich kids who got to travel the country playing junior golf, the people at his dad’s courses who thought he was a joke, and everyone in Vermont who told him he couldn’t make it.

  It’s Keegan Bradley vs. The World, and even though he’s smart enough to recognize the good luck he’s had and the favors he’s received, none of that matters when it’s time to win. At that point, he fixates on the snubs. He’s Captain Ahab, another famous New Englander, chasing the white whale of universal respect that he’ll never catch.

  “I still play with a lot of anger,” he told me. “I still feel like I’ve got a lot to prove.”

  Seven top tens followed in 2013, though it was also the first year that Bradley failed to win a tournament. Now, in 2014, the pressure was on to close the gap in the Ryder Cup standings—he desperately wanted to play in the Gleneagles Cup in September, and though he stood a good chance to earn a captain’s pick, he wanted to make the top nine on his own merit. He nearly won in Bay Hill, finishing second to Matt Every, and as April wound to a close he had a chance to take down a young and winless South Korean named Seung-Yul Noh in New Orleans. And he was right where he wanted to be—two strokes behind, ready to attack.

  —

  In New Orleans, it all went according to plan for the comeback kid—at least for two holes. Noh came out with a nervous bogey, and Bradley made birdie on the second. The two-shot deficit was erased before the untested Korean had time to get settled.

  The wind blew hard on the TPC Louisiana course, gusting up to 30 mph and reminding Noh of the windy coastal conditions from his childhood in Gangwon province. Home was very much on his mind that day—he wore a ribbon on his hat in remembrance of the MV Sewol, a ferry that had capsized earlier that month off the south coast of Korea, killing more than three hundred passengers. He had received another reminder from Korea that morning in the form of a text from his pal Y. E. Yang: If you play your game and lose, it doesn’t matter. The only way you can truly lose is if the situation takes you out of your game.

  Noh took the advice to heart, and his past experience with close calls on the Tour had taught him well. He needed a quiet mind. On the days when he failed, he had caught himself walking faster, swinging faster, and feeling just plain different in all facets of his game. As the holes wore on, and he made par after par, he forced himself to walk at a slower than normal pace, and not worry about how Bradley or any of the other players were performing. The minute he began to take a reactionary approach—Keegan made birdie, so now I have to make birdie and stay ahead—he’d be in trouble. The more he could think like he had the first three days, when he played fifty-four bogey-free holes, the more he could play like those days.

  The bogey on the first hole didn’t rattle him. He limited himself to one swing thought, and let the action on the course play out. When Bradley bogeyed the fifth, he regained the lead, and then, on the long par-4 sixth, Bradley’s triple bogey woes struck again—a wayward tee shot landed in the water left of the hole, and after laying up from the drop zone and hitti
ng a poor approach, he three-putted for a disastrous seven. If anyone could recover from triple bogey, it was Bradley, but that kind of magic rarely strikes twice. This time, he managed just two birdies to go along with two more bogeys in the rest of the round. Frustration manifested itself all over his face, and he faded into a tie for eighth.

  Noh’s real challenge came from the other St. John’s alum, Andrew Svoboda. Two birdies on the back nine brought him to -17 for the tournament, close enough to put a scare into the twenty-two-year-old South Korean. After an uneventful front nine, Noh began to liven things up on the way home with an alternating series of birdies and bogeys.

  Heading into the 17th hole, Noh stood at -19, two shots clear of Svoboda and everyone else. On the tee at the 215-yard par 3, he knew he had to avoid the water stretching along the left side of the hole, and the result was a weak tee shot that landed far right and shy of the green. From eighty-nine feet away, he pitched to fourteen feet, and faced a par putt that meant the difference between a one- or two-shot lead heading into the final hole. It’s the kind of margin that means everything; with a two-shot lead, he couldn’t lose, but with just one shot to spare, the pressure could crush him.

  The putt looked left all the way, like a simple misread. The ball went so straight for so long that it came as a surprise when it slid right at the very end and barely caught the left edge of the cup. After he watched the ball fall into the hole, Noh gave an uncharacteristic fist pump, knowing what he’d just accomplished. He played it very safe on 18 for par, and won his first PGA Tour event.

  As he celebrated his win, Y. E. Yang and Charlie Wi came out of nowhere to spray him with bottled beer—Yang had a 6:30 flight, but he made sure he was on the scene to congratulate his young friend.

  —

  Bradley would go another full year without a win, but he’d never stop campaigning for that coveted Ryder Cup captain’s pick, and the chance to reclaim his Medinah magic with Phil Mickelson. For all his talk of being the flinty outsider from New England in a world of child stars, he knew how to make the right friends and be in the right place. His Tuesday practice rounds with Mickelson and Fowler put him in high company, and whether he deserved it or not, he knew how to capture Tom Watson’s eye.

  Seung-Yul Noh could barely capture anyone’s eye. The Korean winner fielded questions in the interview room, told the reporters he loved his new caddie, and said that no, he never felt nervous. It ended quickly—as it always does for the Asian players—and the champ left the stage alone.

  12

  CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA

  Derek the Fluke

  “In high school, the music teacher said I should join the marching band because I was getting good at the drums. I said, ‘OK, but I have golf practice.’ She said ‘Really? How far do you think you’re going to get in golf?’ I looked at her and said, ‘How far do you think I’m going to get in the marching band?’ ”

  —DEREK ERNST, in Golf Digest, March 2014

  In second grade, Derek Ernst loved building forts so much that his mother bought him a child’s tool set. It had everything, including a miniature saw. On Valentine’s Day, he decided to make his mother a gift—a tiny fence, so she could put her stuffed bears inside. He set up in the driveway on a sunny day and began by cutting through a length of PVC pipe with the saw. He got halfway through before the implement got stuck, and so he tried to dislodge it by slamming it on the ground.

  The pipe snapped in half, and a rogue piece flew up at his face. Before he could react, it had sliced his right eyeball down the center. Ernst ran screaming into the house, and later that night, at one a.m., a doctor put ten stitches in his eye. The pain lasted for days, and the stitches stayed for six months. They saved the eye, but when the scar healed, it thickened. Today, at twenty-four, Ernst still can’t read anything with his right eye. He demonstrated for me when we spoke at the Colonial—“See that sign?” he asked. “I see white blobs. Over there, that’s probably a flag, but they’re just blobs to me.” At dawn and dusk, when the sky darkens, his depth perception suffers—bad business for a professional golfer who plays by feel.

  —

  When that kind of bad luck hits you as a kid, maybe good karma starts stacking up, waiting for a day when it can tip the scales back in your favor.

  In May 2013, just twenty-two years old and with a skinny frame and a baby face, Derek Ernst was in a car on the way to Athens, Georgia, to play in a Web.com Tour event. He’d earned his PGA Tour card at Q-School the previous December, but his priority number was too low to make it into the Wells Fargo Championship that weekend in Charlotte. So he rented a car in New Orleans on the Monday after the Zurich Classic and started driving north. On the way, he got a phone call from the Tour—enough players had withdrawn, and he was now in the field in Charlotte.

  At Quail Hollow, where the Wells Fargo is played, the greens were in horrifying shape. Nobody knew who or what to blame—a new course superintendent, maybe, or bentgrass with low heat tolerance, or poor maintenance due to “top-dressing” the greens with sand. Two of the greens were so bad that they had to be resodded just before the tournament, an extraordinary measure for a Tour stop. The rest looked like they’d come down with some sort of splotchy rash, and the discoloration was not purely cosmetic—rolls were uneven, putts were affected, players complained.

  The poor conditions resulted in nine withdrawals in the week leading up to the tournament. The golfers all had their own excuses, but the circumstances went beyond “suspicious.” As CBS’s Kyle Porter reported, Ian Poulter actually tweeted about the horrid state of the greens, flew to Charlotte to check them out firsthand, and then flew back home citing “personal reasons.”

  When Mark Wilson pulled out, Ernst got the phone call—he was in. It had been a rough rookie year to that point for Ernst. Since finishing in seventeenth place at Q-School, he had missed cuts in five of seven tournaments, and he came in to the Wells Fargo ranked 1,207th in the world.

  He had begun working with a mental coach named Susie Meyers, who also worked with Michael Thompson, and many writers would later give her credit for Ernst’s opening round 67 in Charlotte. He followed that up with 71 and 72, and heading into Sunday, he trailed Phil Mickelson and Nick Watney by two shots. What happened next, for a player of his stature and ranking, almost defies belief. In wet, rainy conditions, the self-admitted “fidgety player” slogged his way through the damp fairways and damaged greens, playing steady, unflappable golf. By the time he reached the 18th fairway, he stood at -7. In the group behind him, Mickelson still led by a shot, and Ernst figured he’d need at least a birdie to win the tournament.

  From 183 yards away, he choked up on a six-iron and struck the shot of his life—a gorgeous approach that landed near the back left pin and stopped less than five feet from the hole. No sooner had he made the birdie putt to reach -8 than news reached him from the group behind—Mickelson had bogeyed 17. When the lefty couldn’t sink his birdie putt from the fringe on the last hole, it left just Ernst and David Lynn in a two-man playoff for the championship.

  It was the kind of moment that the average golf fan watching on TV would hate—why couldn’t Phil have made the playoff? Who are these nobodies?—while for Ernst, there was a possibility that his life would change completely.

  He and Lynn went back to 18, where Ernst hit another incredible approach, this time from thirty yards farther back, to set up a birdie putt. Lynn’s drive ended up on the banks of a small creek, and he had to stand on a rock in the middle of the water as he took ambitious aim at the green. The ball landed in the bunker, where he blasted out over the green, and couldn’t hole the chip coming back.

  Ernst’s birdie putt lipped out, but it didn’t matter—one tap-in later, and the 1,207th-ranked player in the world had completed one of the greatest long-shot stories in PGA Tour history.

  —

  For most players, the maiden win launches a career. In Ernst’s case, the trajectory was quite different. Almost from the very start,
the larger golf world viewed his triumph as a bizarre fluke. At his very next tournament, the Players Championship, the first question he faced in the media room was about whether he felt bad that his win in Charlotte had knocked Scott Langley out of the Jacksonville field. An unfair question, at best, but it was an accurate forecast of what Ernst would face.

  The pundits weren’t wrong. He finished the 2013 season by missing nine of thirteen cuts, and never finished better than forty-fourth in a single event. The fluke narrative had legs to stand on, and Ernst did nothing to disprove the doubters. Maybe he wanted to be grouped with the emerging young stars of the sport, but he found himself in a race against time.

  The PGA Tour gives tournament winners a very generous two-year exemption, and the two-year countdown doesn’t actually start until the following season. For Ernst, it meant he could spend all of 2013 floundering, and still have the full 2014 and 2015 seasons to elevate his game and try to break into the top 125. In the aftermath of his victory, it began to look like he’d need every last minute.

  He sunk below the radar, and anytime he lifted his head up with a good round, he found himself taking potshots from fans and media. They all believed the fluke of the century would be off the Tour in two years, and in the meantime, they intended to let him know exactly how lucky he’d been.

  Meanwhile, his handlers cost him money that Ernst would have preferred not to spend—Ernst told me that the total had exceeded $100,000 in less than a year. Much of that went to Susie Meyers, the mental coach who Ernst mistakenly thought was a traditional swing coach when they first met. They’d worked together for about four hours total before the Wells Fargo, Ernst said, and it cost him $75,000—not to mention the fact that she took a huge share of the credit for his win in Charlotte. He switched agents, switched caddies, switched swing coaches.